Faithful Pebble
by perrilloux.bf68
Summary: She fell. That is what the townspeople told him, a wanderer only passing through. Now as he stands over the mouth of an empty well, he ponders the problem of raising a girl whose entire life has been spent living in darkness. She desires only one thing. A light to see. A light to hold. A light only he can bring. This story is told in drabbles, expect short chapters. [10up]
1. Part One

**Faithful Pebble**

**Part One**

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"Once upon a time there were three sisters, Elsie, Lacie and Tillie. They lived at the bottom of a well." That is what the Hare had said— no, I am mistaken. That was the beginning of the unfinished tale that was attempted to be told by a late Mr. Dormouse to a little girl trapped in a hole, lost in a world, sitting before three mad characters at a tea party that is debatable if she ever really enjoyed.

Distracted, the tale ended, and the little girl's adventure continued on towards white knights, red queens and coated rabbits with white fur and tardy pocket watches. Never until afterwards perhaps would her mind filled with plums and sugar return to ponder the happenstance of the weird little sisters that lived at the bottom of a well, living on treacle which is only a form of syrup, an unlikely thing to live on surely. No, her thoughts never strayed back there, never questioned who they were, what they were, or more importantly how they got to be there.

How is such a bothersome question, but how is often times a beginning to a story; just like why, or what if, or correlate. Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie weren't the only women who lived in a well. There was another, only one other unfortunate and gloomy enough to succumb to such a fate. Her name was Pebble.

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_This was technically written as a short story, but I have begun to post it in drabbles on Facebook. Now, I am also doing it here for your enjoyment as well as mine. Please humor me. It's far from perfect, but hey. Drop a line if you feel so inclined. ~ Calla_


	2. Part Two

**Faithful Pebble**

**Part Two**

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Pebble wasn't her original name. At least, this isn't how the story went, the rumor that filtered from mouth to mouth, from ear to ear of the villagers of Warble Heights. The rumor was that it was something sweet perhaps, long, or tighty, or obnoxious. They were never really sure. You see, that had long since been forgotten, like the names of her parents ,or the street she lived on, or the house she grew up in, or even if she lived in that very village at all. None of that had ever been discovered. All they knew was that she had fallen, a young maiden no more than 5 (that's what the mayor thought) or 10 to those more sympathetic, more intelligent than the average Joe on the street (which was everyone).

* * *

_~ Calla_


	3. Part Three

**Faithful Pebble**

**Part Three**

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_All they knew was that she had fallen, a young maiden no more than 5 (that's what the Mayor thought) or 10 to those more sympathetic, more intelligent than the average Joe on the street (which was everyone)._

"She must have toddled off the trail, like the maiden once talked of with baskets and red capes." That was the opinion of the hens of the village, those plump women who spent most of their days gossiping around tea tables and washbasins. "She didn't listen to her mother's advice and look at what happened to her. For shame!"

"No, I'd say she was meeting a secret lover of some sort." The man, a young man of fighting age with steel trap armor and a beer, snorted with his brothers. Never mind that she was only a child. Rumors are rumors after all and in his mind perhaps she was older, more developed, more… He coughed and blushed. The red of his beer smeared across his nose and whisker dotted chin. "Anyway, she was meeting him in the woods on that very hill where the well is. No one goes there, you know. It's a perfect little hide out, if you know what I mean."

No, they didn't know what he meant. The young children, you know, those dirty snot plagued cretins that mother's love, old men detest and teenagers dread, they didn't understand that at all, but they knew for sure what had happened. "She was drawn there."

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_~ Calla_


	4. Part Four

**Faithful Pebble**

**Part Four**

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"Drawn there?"

"Yes!" A boy answered with big eyes and a happy smile, "Like those two kids, and the witch, and the candy house."

"No! No! Like the man with the pipe, you know, the one with the meeces?" Another boy picked his nose something nasty. "Someone came and lured her to the well."

"If that was so, why would she fall in?"

The boy shrugged. "He pushed."

"No!" The youngest of the four, the smallest of the riffraff, the monstrous pickpocket gang of that small little town, even he knew. "No! Everybody knows this." He looked up at the man, who smiled, and nodded, and listened silently with his bag over his shoulder, his cropped hair dirty and wild covering cyan blue eyes that crinkled with concern and curiosity. "She fell, mister," the boy whispered. "She fell and that's where she stayed."

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_And that's where I leave you. I plan to update regularly. Keep an eye out. ~ Calla_


	5. Part Five

**Faithful Pebble**

**Part Five**

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The young man, a wanderer who was only passing by, tilted his head. "Stayed?"

The boy nodded. His own messy blonde hair bobbed, falling into brown-black eyes smothered with wonder and mischief. "No one knew she was even down there, because the well is dry and a good cockleap into the woods. Nobody ever goes there, but one of the men found her while he was busy chopping trees. He tried to help her, but—"

"She was too weak," the Madame totted. You know the one, the hen with the snottier nose, the juiciest gossip and the largest net of blurry eyed followers. "He put down a rope and she could barely climb it, the poor dear."

"Not only that," the man with the beer chortled, "she wouldn't even take hold of it. Mentioned something about fear and what not. Complete coward, if you'd ask me. If it was me, I'd—"

"Have done something more. I would have been eager to do anything to catch whatever opportunity I could to escape, but she didn't."

"Why?" The wanderer asked softly helping the old wood cutter to his damp spare hut.

"I don't know," he shrugged. He twisted rotten shoulders, drooped matted eyebrows. "Lack of resolve, I suppose."

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**Thank you ~ Calla**


	6. Part Six

**Faithful Pebble**

**Part Six**

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"It's such a sad thing. We all tried to help."

"And she just wouldn't—"

"Couldn't—"

"And so—"

"They just left her there. I feed her once in a while, bread when I'm in the area."

"When we sneak away—"

"I give some to my son so he can feed her. It's the least we can do to help the poor dear. She's been down there since heaven knows when. It's amazing she's even alive, but in all honesty, I'd really hate to see what she looks like." The Madame laughed causing the others around her to snicker and giggle, their laughter mixing with the bellows of the men, the hackles of the old wood cutter, the teeters of the children.

The harsh melody accompanied the young wanderer as he escaped from the town into the dark damp woods, towards the well and its crusted hill. It was just tall enough to view the town, but not tall enough for the town to see him. He looked down at them, then snorted shaking his head. "She does have a point. I too wonder what she looks like."

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**Thank you for reading - Calla**


	7. Part Seven

**Faithful Pebble**

**Part Seven**

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"She used to talk, but now it's just silent. She's stopped talking." That's what the wood cutter had said.

He peered down into its depths noting the rocky grey walls. They tainted blacker the deeper it went. He couldn't see the bottom. The wander leaned in further, stretched to his toes as his grip on the rotting frame tightened. There was no cover. The well was just a square hole in the ground with a thick wall that just reached the arching bend of his waist.

"One of the last things I heard her say was that it was getting deeper. It's why you can't see the bottom. And she can't see you. I used to talk to her, you know. Describe the world and what not, because she was so curious, that one. She didn't know what light was. She could remember it, but then she couldn't. 'I wish I could see it. Just one more time.' That's what she used to say. Would say it all the time, but now it's just silent."

Light? Silence? He peered down and tried to smile wondering if it was true.

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**- Calla P. How was your week?**


	8. Part Eight

**Faithful Pebble**

**Part Eight**

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She couldn't see the light. Even at night, he could see the stars. They were miles away, miles upon miles at the end of a distance he could only imagine and yet he could still see them. They always shone brilliantly, brightly. There were days where it seemed he could just reach out and touch them. And she couldn't see them. _What about the sun?_

He waved then waited. He rapped the side of the cold stone wall. He yelled down then leaned in further, his eyes squinting into the darkness. "He-hello? Pebble?"

"Because she fell."

"Hmm?" The man regarded the smallest, the youngest child of that monstrous gang. He kneeled before him, meeting him eye to eye like a man would his equal. "What did you say?" he asked.

"We call her Pebble, because she fell." The boy gathered a rock and raised it high over his head. A kind of firm determination crumpled his face, sticking out his tongue from between two plump purple-stained lips. He dropped it. It fell silently to the ground—

Just like the wanderer's did. He'd on whim, when nothing happened, found a small rough stone upon the grassy hill and dusted it off. Then, he held it over the opening praying that he wouldn't hit her. In an instant, it dropped. It fell without a sound sailing, plunging, diving until it hit rock bottom. Apparently, the villagers were right. The well must have been dry for nothing sailed into his ears, not a splash, not a gurgle, a thud, or even a—

"Please."

* * *

**~ Calla**


	9. Part Nine

**Faithful Pebble**

**Part Nine**

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He paused, his heart racing. He leaned forward listening. The voice was small, dull and gloomy. It was rough and muffled as though her mouth was full of cotton. "Please. Please don't throw."

He blinked. Instantly, his bag fell to the ground. His smile widened. He waved his hands. "Hey! Hey!" he yelled.

"Please."

"Can you see me?"

"Please!"

"Can you?"

"PLEASE!"

He paused hearing her pleading, her voice rising, the syllables running together faster, fast, fastest until the word was barely recognizable. "Please! Please! Please!"

He blinked. He stopped. He spoke gently, his fingers spreading wide in the air. "Please," he answered. "Please. Don't be afraid."

* * *

**~Calla**


	10. Part Ten

**Faithful Pebble**

**Part Ten**

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He dropped to a knee dig, dug, digging into the darkness of his bag, the leather pouch he filled before he left the village. With certain steady hands he pulled out a nail, a hammer, a loaf of bread, a basket, cheese, water and some good strong sturdy thrice stranded rope.

"Please!"

To her cries, he hammered the tent peg into the earth, tied the rope around its thick iron stiff neck then hefted the elephant ton weight of it towards the well. He tossed it down, up and over the moss drenched side hoping, praying, wishing mightily that it didn't hit her.

It didn't.

It did worse.

"PLEASE!" Now she was screaming.

For a moment, the wanderer hesitated looking over the edge—hoping, wishing, praying—longing to see a set of wide frightened eyes, the gleam of dirty damp hair. But all he saw was piercing darkness, all he heard was a quivering silence that erupted out of the screaming, choking her voice into muted horror.

Within that silence, his voice was soft, his careful tenor calm before her senseless panic. "Please," he answered. "Please grab hold of the rope and I will pull you out."

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_Thank you for the reviews, Guest, Mertle, and Rose. I appreciate it. ~ Calla_


	11. Part Eleven

**Faithful Pebble**

**Part Eleven**

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"Your neighbors told me about you. They said your arms were weak and that you're unable to climb the rope. They also said that you didn't speak, but I can hear you." He leaned over further with blue eyes squinting, cropped hair falling into them. "I came prepared. Just hold onto the rope and I will lift you out."

His answer was silence. It was heavy and impatient. Tapping the edge of that great stone wall, he waited for some sign, some hint that she had heard him.

None came. A minute, a second, ten thousand seconds passed by meandering like strangers on a street and still, even then, none came. Undetermined though, filled with a stout curiosity, the man in his doubt grabbed hold of the rope and began to tug hoping that maybe, wishing that perhaps—it jerked. In seconds—one, ten, ten thousand—the rope wound and wound until suddenly it caught, a weight pulling it down like the mouse dangling from his fabled clock swung pendulum.

Instantly, the man smiled. It was broad and wild and true, as true as the cyan dipped sky and as golden as a heart swaying on an invisible string. Left. Right. Up. Up. With sure steady tugs, he pulled and hefted the rope feeling the weight on the end climb and lift, soar to unimaginable heights pulled along, rising steadily with the hope in his heart. But like all stories, like all hopes, it was premature. His smile faded. It shattered mightily as suddenly, without warning, the rope snapped and the weight fell, falling to a bottom he couldn't see.

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_Can you believe I haven't finished writing the rough draft for this yet? Don't worry, I know the ending. There is an ending. I just haven't gotten there yet. It's been a long day. How was your week? ~ Calla_


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